The True American Tradition; W. A. Riddle

The Declaration was elevated to de facto Constitutional status. The strictures placed on power by the Founders, their careful system of checks and balances, the Bill of Rights they placed against the federal government-these began to wane as government grew. American constitutionalism gave way to majority senti ment, increasingly expressed by the central government's open-ended commitment to vague notions of "equality" and "rights" from language found in the Declaration of Inde pendence. In allowing this to happen, we have ignored the unique historical context of the Declaration, its form and function and words designed for a specific purpose, i.e., for inde pendence from Great Britain-not for the peacetime structure and aims of a consoli dated national government! Most among the very same Revolutionary generation, who fought the British Redcoats after declaring 293 "[In 1776,] the world was born again.... "